Dinner with mom
by evincis
Summary: What could have happened at Gabriel's house? Just how many suggestions can Mary Vaughn make that Gabriel and Riley are a couple? And how far can the two women bond over him? Please read and review.


_Disclaimer: I do not own Intelligence nor its characters (if I did I would have gone to all possible networks in order to continue the show). This story is for entertainment purposes only and means no copyright infringement whatsoever. Do not publish without my explicit consent. _

_AN/ I don't know about you but I can't stop smiling whenever I try to imagine the dinner that followed the finale. Here is a version of what could have happened._

_By the way, I wondered how Gabriel hid the chip from his mom and how it was possible that she only hasn't heard from him in months. After all, he had been in the Clockwork project for 6 years and the program reached the deployment phase only recently._

"Mrs Vaughn, this is the best risotto that I have ever tasted." Riley complemented the food.

"Please, call me Mary. After everything that happened in the past few days, I think that we can drop the formalities." The older woman said. "And thank you. It tastes better with a glass of red wine but my son seems to only have beer. Well, next time." Riley smiled when se saw Gabriel tense at the thought of a dinner like this happening again while Mary continued to interrogate her son on his work. "So, Gabriel, tell me. How long has this chip business been going on?"

"A few years." Gabriel answered after a pause. He didn't want to deceive his mother any more but he didn't want to expose her to any more danger than she was already exposed to by revealing too much information. Clockwork was classified for a reason.

"Years?" The old woman almost shouted in surprise. "How many?" Gabriel looked at Riley who gave him an encouraging nod.

"Well, about a year after Amelia disappeared, I was approached about an opportunity to do this. I... I thought that the chip might help find her, so I agreed. After a bunch of interviews and tests… I got the chip. That was a little over 3 years ago."

"I still can't believe that you had brain surgery and didn't tell me." Riley could see the pain in the woman's eyes. "I could have been there for you."

"Or you would have tried to talk me out of it." Gabriel stated. And he was right.

"What good would it have done? I asked you not to join the army, and you still did it."

"Mom, can we please not start that discussion again?" The ex-soldier pleaded.

"Fine." Mary reluctantly agreed. "Is that why you suddenly disappeared and started visiting me only once or twice a year?"

"Yes. For a very long time after that, I had to be in a confined environment so that I could learn how to use the chip. Besides, we needed to discover how it worked." He explained. "Sometimes the doc would turn it off though, so I could have some time outside and come visit you."

"Gabriel Paul Jason Vaughn, if you weren't already injured I would cut your ears off. How could you not tell me about this earlier? How could you hide this from me?" Mary was obviously worried about her son. And she had every reason to be.

"I'm sorry, mom. I was just trying to protect you." He apologized and turned to his partner who had let out a laugh. "What are _you_ laughing at?"

"She used your full name. You're in trouble." She teased him.

"Haha. Very funny." Gabriel had gotten somewhat used to the fact that this woman was protecting him (or at least he pretended to) but when said woman also bonded with his mother over teasing him, he didn't like it one bit. "Just for that, I'm not letting you chose the music when we get back to work." However he couldn't help but reciprocate her smile when her eyes lit up.

"So, young lady, how do you fit in all this?" Mary continued her inquiries. "Has he been hiding you as well for 6 years?"

"No. Actually we met a few months ago. You see... since Gabriel is the first person to have such a piece of equipment, he is very important. And as you may have noticed, very wanted."

"I got that, yes."

"Well, my job is to make sure that nothing happens to him." Riley explained simply and tried to hide the guilt that she was feeling over what had happened to Gabriel.

"You mean, this beautiful young lady here is your bodyguard?" Mary turned toward her son.

"I prefer the word partner. It makes me sound less as a rock star." He didn't want to say "weak"

"You wish you were a rock star." Riley teased him again.

"Too many drugs and not enough action." He teased back.

"Only you would find it fun to be shot at every day." Riley said, taking another bite of her risotto.

"Finally, someone who agrees with me." Mary pointed out. "I like her."

"Well, you won't when she calls at 6 am tomorrow morning to see if I'm breathing and when she checks your grocery bags for poison later." Gabriel decided to tease Riley rather than think that this had been typical "meeting the girlfriend" line.

"She keeps you on a leash, doesn't she?"

"She tries. She can see my kitchen from her balcony." Gabriel added.

"I'm just keeping a close eye on you." Riley said with an affectionate tone.

"Keeping a close eye, stalking... It's really a fine line."

"I don't see you complaining." As soon as the words left Riley's mouth, there was tension in the room, something Mary Vaughn did not fail to notice. He'd complained on the first day but never since. He realized that it didn't bother him anymore. It allowed them to get coffee together every morning, and grab a bite and have a beer after work. It was just nice having her around.

"Well, Lillian didn't give me much of a choice, now. Did she?" Gabriel's attempt to diffuse the awkwardness seemed to work. "She wouldn't believe me when I told her that I was perfectly capable of taking care of myself."

"You always need something to prove." Mary spoke again and turned to Riley in order to explain. "All men in this family did: my husband, his father and his brother, my two sons. All in the army or the Marines or some other way to get themselves killed." Riley understood now what Gabriel had meant when he'd said that everyone in his family had died on a dusty battlefield somewhere.

"In all fairness, you chose to marry a soldier." Gabriel noted.

"I didn't have much of a choice." For the first time since she'd met her, Riley saw Mary genuinely smile."He had that smug on his face. The same that you have right now. And those dimples… I almost ruined his stitches because of it."

"Gabriel's father was a patient of yours?" Riley wanted to know more. Mary nodded.

"Had to remove a big piece of shrapnel from his side. We got married not six months after. He was a fine man." Mary started to recall the old times."I didn't want to go out with him at first, you know? What would people think? You know how many stories I had heard about nurses seduced by some soldier and then abandoned with a kid or two? But he didn't take no for an answer. Pretended not to heal for a whole month only so he could see me every day. Said that shrapnel was the best thing that ever happened to him. Now, how can you argue with that?"

"You can't really." Riley agreed with her. All this sounded like a story taken from an old movie and even thought Riley wasn't a hopeless romantic, she liked the idea that such stories could exist in real life. She realized that she was smiling.

"The one thing I never forgave him was to fill their heads with that duty stuff." Mary continued. "Don't get me wrong, I didn't become a combat nurse because I wanted to keep it safe but hey... You'd think that after I lost a husband and a son the second son wouldn't go join the army a month after he buried his brother."

"Mom, can you please drop this?" Gabriel was tired of having that argument with his mother.

"You could have become an athlete." She turned to Riley."He was an excellent swimmer back in high school, you know? Went to college on a scholarship. Three colleges were fighting over him." Riley didn't know what to say. It was hard for her to imagine Gabriel at 18: innocent and filed with dreams and hopes for the world. She only knew the tough soldier he was now and the man that he'd become. But she got curious about the boy that Mary was describing. They had fallen in an uncomfortable silence that Riley decided to break.

"None of us are doing what we thought we would do with our lives when we were in high school."

"Really?" Of course Gabriel would grasp at every opportunity to get information on her since he'd promised not to read her file. "And what did young Riley Neal want to be when she was in high school?." She smiled.

"Well she wanted to survive high school. The after graduation part seeped too far away." Gabriel suddenly remembered that with everything that she'd been through, high school must have been hell for her. But before he could apologize for digging up the past, Riley spoke again, turning to his mother. "Think of it this way: at least Gabriel's doing something that he loves. And something that he's actually pretty good at." She gave him a shy smile.

The rest of dinner was filled with small talk and numerous attempts on Mary's behalf to embarrass her son who started having flashbacks from every time he'd presented a girlfriend to his mother. And Riley was only his partner. He could only imagine what would happen if he and Riley actually became an item. He would be a dead man.

"I want you to make sure that he stops by at least from time to time." Mary asked Riley and turned to her son. "Believe it or not, but I miss you. And I'm not the only one. Lizzy will be 13 in the fall."

"Look at that. Did she grow up that fast?" Mary nodded.

"She's asking about you, you know?" Of course Mary would continue with the guilt trip. Gabriel chose to ignore her comment and chose to turn to Riley who had a puzzled expression on her face.

"Elisabeth is my niece. She was still a baby when my brother died. She doesn't really remember him." There was an awkward silence after that. None of them knew what to say.

"I… I should go." Riley headed for the door. "I'll call you tomorrow morning?"

"6 am check in. Got it." He didn't even sound annoyed. How about that? He was already used to it.

"I'll walk you out." Mary said and started walking toward the door.

"No, I got it." Gabriel was somewhat afraid to leave his mother alone with Riley.

"You won't get off that easily, boy. I cooked. Now you wash the dishes. And careful not to pull your stitches."

"Can you come to work with us from time to time?" Riley teased on her way out. "I could definitely use someone who can make him listen."

"He may be a full grown man but I nursed him until he was 8 months old and washed his socks for almost 20 years after that." That earned her a loud "MOM!" but she chose to ignore it. "Look, girl, thank you." She said in a low voice once they were in the hallway so only Riley would hear.

"What for?"

"Taking care of my son. I lost his father and I lost his brother. He's all I have left." Riley didn't know how to respond to that. The woman was entrusting her with the only precious thing she had left in the world.

"I'm just..." she started to say but Mary cut her off.

"Your job is to keep him safe not to save him. And you've saved him in more ways than you can see. Now, come here." She gave her a hug. "Have a good night sleep. I got him covered as you agents say. No one is going through me so sleep in tomorrow morning. God knows you need it. And we'll be expecting you over for breakfast. I'll make raspberry pie. It's Gabriel's favorite." Riley nodded and bed goodnight. "And, Riley, don't you worry about that Chinese smarty pants. Whatever she and my son have in common, she doesn't stand a chance against you. Good night." With that Mary Vaughn closed the door leaving her son's partner completely speechless in the hallway.

"Where do you think you're going?" Mary asked as she closed the door behind her.

"To bed. When I said that Riley will call at 6 am, I meant it."

"First I have to change the dressing on your wound." Mary pointed at the couch for him to sit.

"I can do that myself. I'm not a baby."

"Come on, sit down. I don't get to see you very often. Let me at least spend some time with you." Mary pleaded him. She really missed her son. Thankfully he agreed. "I like that partner of yours. She's a good girl."

"Yeah, she is." He agreed.

"So when are you going to get a grip of yourself and sweep her off her feet?" Not that Riley was the kind of girl who needed that but still. Mary could see something beautiful blossom between her son and his partner and she didn't want them to lose precious time. She knew better than anyone not to take anything in life for granted.

"Mom, would you stop, please? We both told you. It's not like that." Gabriel was getting tired of this. It was the third time in two days that he or Riley had to correct someone about it. Interestingly enough though, he never corrected Mei Chen in their joint Cyberrender.

"The hell it isn't." Mary wasn't going to let this go."You have that same tingle in your eyes as you did when you brought home... what was her name?… Lisa Carter... when you were 16. Same foolish grin but this time it's different. This time, you know it's real and you can't mess it up." He tired to stop her but before he could say anything she interrupted him._ "_Now, I know that you are getting over your wife but le me tell you something: Amelia left you almost 7 years ago, son. You deserve to move on and be happy. And this girl makes you happy. Please try to stop denying this, at least to yourself." Gabriel didn't know what to say. He looked at the pleading look in his mother's eyes but he couldn't bring himself to acknowledge nor deny her theory.

"Can I go to sleep, now?" He opted for a change of subject.

"Where do you get that stubbornness from I don't know." He rolled his eyes. "Ok, maybe I do. But your brother at least had the decency to leave me a grandchild before he died. Who is going to remember you?"

"Mom, I'm not dead nor dying." He tried to reassure her.

"He says after he almost bled to death two days before." She did have a point."Now, come on. Off to bed. Try not to move too much. Whatever you do, don't sleep on your stomach. Your wound is still healing. I'll make some tea and I'll come check on you in a minute."

"Why don't you come tuck me in and read me Peter Pan while you're at it."

"Don't try to act so smart or I might actually do that." She teased him back but something in her tone made him think she wasn't joking. He started walking toward his bedroom but stopped on his way and turned to her.

"Thanks, mom. I don't I don't say it much but I love you."

"I love you too."

_AN/ Make my day and review. Pleaaaaaaase._


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